tomw

I feel with & for you. Like you, the love of my life, Matt, died in December '98. That poem you posted speaks volumes to me. It was a harrowing time, which is probably why people are reluctant to relive it all over again. Kind of like how participants in WWII were always reluctant to speak of their experiences. I already sent an email to Jonathan with my personal recollections, so I won't go over it again here. Suffice to say, I miss Matt so much to this day and and still pissed at what happened in the 80's--a lot more compassion then might have saved so many lives, including Matt's and several other close friends who died. As Trebs recommended above, if you haven't, definitely read Shilts's And the Band Played On for the details on all that. I truly welcome stories that involve this subject because of increasing infection rates among young gay men these days. We can't, by silence, let this happen again. I recall the old Act Up slogan: Silence = Death. So effing true even today. To witness some of the real, personal impact of the AIDS holocaust (I don't use that term lightly) visit the Names Project web site where you can view the many thousands of quilt panels loved ones made for their friends who died. http://www.aidsquilt.org. Matt & I went to the March on Washington in the final days of the senior Bush administration where all the Quilt panels to date completely covered the Mall in DC (there are photos of that in their site). Peace & hugs to all the bereaved.

So, I was reading With Trust today and got to ch 6 and was struck by how the relationship between Nelson and Milo was similar to a friendship I had in college. I was so much like Milo back then: closeted (I was out to only two close friends), nervous of being outed, and wishing I had the balls to be out. The college I went to was a small one in a small town in the deepest, darkest part of the Midwest, so there weren't many encouragements to be out there. My 'Nelson' was named Drew. He was a redhead, shorter than me by 3-4 inches. He was what I would call exuberant (okay, he was pretty gay). We were in the same theater class I took (go figure) as an elective one semester and struck up a bit of a friendship, though I was rather leery of him. Drew would always make these suggestive comments about other guys he thought were hot to me, though I was pretty firmly in the closet then and had never let on to him I was gay. He made me pretty nervous most of the time, but he was definitely entertaining. Anyway, one day I saw him sitting at one of the tables in front of the student union as I was leaving after lunch. I smoked then (stop now if you smoke--it's very bad for you) so was totally in need of a nicotine fix as one does after a meal. I walked over to him and dropped my backpack on his table and fished out my pack of cigs and lit one up. He asked for one, too, which I gave him. With a big 40's Hollywood starlet kind of flourish he stuck it in his mouth and sat there obviously waiting for me to light it for him. I did so reluctantly, nervous that the whole scene was just a little too gay and too public. To cover my discomfort, I started in on how I wanted to quit smoking, and how awful the habit was, etc., etc. Drew interrupted and drawled, "Oh, I don't know, I think you look kind of natural with a fag hanging out of your mouth." I was shocked into immobility by that and stood there frozen for what felt like minutes while about a couple dozen emotions chased themselves around in my head then I just said to myself, screw it, and joined him as we laughed our asses off with me thinking how bloody effing right he was. It's funny how that one statement has stuck with me. The boldness & bluntness of it, not to mention the underlying truth, always endeared Drew to me. We never were an item or anything, and didn't really keep in touch after that class, but that one encounter was pretty critical to my decision to start coming out to my entire family and the rest of my friends, over the following couple of years. I still think about it from time to time and I laugh all over again. I lost track of him after college, but I hope he's living a happy and love-filled life. If I ever run across him again, I'm going to tell him about what it has meant to me. Anyway, I wonder if others have had similar encounters with your own blunt Nelson-like characters who might have encouraged them out. I hope they aren't uncommon.

I hate knowing how a story ends up. The twists and turns along the way to the unknown end is what keeps me reading. I guess in the back of my head I hope everything will work out okay for the protagonists (and even the antagonists), but I like not knowing for sure that it will. As for killing off characters, I'm not that wild about it, but it can add depth to a story if handled well (i.e. the consequences are worked on among the survivors). An example: in Desert Dropping, I found Aaron to be a very interesting character, second only to Rory, but I felt that the consequences of the death at the end weren't totally covered, but maybe that left room for a sequel all about Aaron.

Most of those books have started some important historical movements. As such, opinions about them are layered over with all sorts of irrelevant 'stuff', so it's good to go to the source to discover for oneself what the big deal is. You have to keep a skeptical mind about anything you read like these, and if you do, then there's not much harm from reading them. If nothing else reading these sorts of books helps develop a critical mind that isn't taken in easily.

The more I think about it, trust is a really interesting thing in a relationship. It's something that's kind of assumed from the outset, but it's also something that is earned/reaffirmed over time. Jealousy is the enemy & destroyer of trust and is more about the jealous person than about the relationship. I'd guess the girl in your story is jealous in a lot of her relationships. I also bet she doesn't realy like herself all that much.

Thanks for the replies. I'm really sorry about your dad, Benji. Yours sounds like a very similar story to mine, sadly. I guess I thought I'd dealt with this in college (I saw a counselor for a while about this and coming out) and put it behind me, but maybe I'll always regret what happened even though I know deep down it wasn't my fault. My youngest brother has been having a hard time with it since my grandmother's death, so it was near the surface already. That chapter just reminded me a little too much of what happened. Anyway, I'm feeling better today after getting all that off my chest yesterday and am on ch 32 now. I'm a little nervous about how Rory, Seth and Luke will get their relationships worked out. I'm pretty sure someone's going to get hurt and whether Rory stays with Eddie or goes back to Nevada won't really solve too much. But I'm hoping for the best (even for Aaron!). No spoilers, please! Thanks for listening, tomw

I'm a newbie here, but have been reading Dom's stories for the past few weeks now (finished: The Log Way, In the Fish Bowl, Ordinary Us; Working on: Desert Dropping). I'm totally emotionally drained after ch 28 of DD and feel like writing up some stuff just to get it off my chest. I'm not looking for sympathy or there-there's. I only want to get this out since I keep thinking about it until I think I'll go crazy. I don't share this with friends since I feel it's just too f**king depressing to bring up with them. so, you're my victims, to put it bluntly. Anyway, I was hit very hard by the passage in Ch 28 where Eddie says to Rory about his dead mom: "She would have done anything to see you happy. I know, she loved me. But I think what you need to understand is, that I wasn